Posts Tagged ‘donald trump’

President Reagan & Speaker Tip O’Neill (Left) President Eisenhower & Speaker Sam Rayburn (right)

For a very long time you would have described me as a Tip O’Neill Democrat. We shared the same faith, came from the same state and shared the same values. I read his books watched his speeches loved his fight for the working man, and regretted that I didn’t take a day off to meet him at a book signing not too long before his death.

I left the Democrat party in the 90’s (and the GOP in 2013) but as I watched President Trump’s State of the Union Speech I was thinking of Tip O’Neill and Sam Rayburn who 1st put him on the rules committee and the path to power in the house. Like O’Neill and before O’Neill Rayburn was a man of the people who had never forgotten the American worker and the American Farmer and all the country owed them.

I thought of them as the president talked about jobs, taking care of Americans, protecting freedom of speech, freedom of religion and talking about American manufacturing and striking back at terrorist who targeted Americans etc etc etc.

I was thinking of them because it hit me that with one very prominent exception from Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema

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…Democrats remained sitting as they president talked about gains for women, minorities and American workers.

I thought back to my youth watching these speeches as a political junkie and remembered Tip and remembered all I read about Sam and thought of how he would have reacted to all of those things Donald Trump was speaking of.

They would have been on their feet clapping.

Sam Rayburn and Tip O’Neill would be what you might call yellow dog Democrats, people who were so loyal to their party that if said party nominated a yellow dog for office they would vote for it vs any Republican but as much as they loved their party they loved America more.

They would have been cheering American victories overseas, they would have been cheering American jobs, they would have been cheering freedom of religion, they would have been cheering higher wages, more opportunities for blacks, Hispanics and women and both Speaker Tip O’Neill and Speaker Sam Rayburn (unlike Speaker Nancy Pelosi) would have been smart enough to make damn sure that their fellow democrat members were standing for these things as well.

In 2010 at CPAC while interviewing some local transit workers in DC I was asked why I was a republican. I answered on camera that as a believing Roman Catholic I felt I was no longer welcome in the Democrat party. I submit and suggest that neither Tip O’Neill nor Sam Rayburn be welcome in the party either because they were more interested in success for America and Americans than in who got credit for that success.

I think it’s a great mercy that neither lived to see what their party had become.

Footnote While Mr. Sam & Tip would be ashamed of what their party had become they’d be damn proud of Senator Kyrsten Sinema tonight.

Bernie won’t win

by baldilocks

In two days, it begins.

Californians start voting Monday in a high-profile Democratic presidential primary that has no clear front-runner and could take longer to count than any previous election in a state already notorious for slow ballot counting.

For the first time, Californians can register to vote all the way up to and including election day wherever ballots are cast, which could mean a surge of last-minute ballots, including last-minute provisional ballots that take longer to count.

Sanders, Warren and Biden are all jockeying for first position here to go against President Trump in November. Our primary used to be on the other Super Tuesday in June, but this year – going forward, I presume – it’s on the first Tuesday in March.

Fifteen counties, including Los Angeles, will replace traditional polling places with “vote centers” where people who live anywhere in the county can vote early, drop off ballots or register to vote. (…)

California has previously allowed same-day voter registration, but only at county elections offices. Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation last year requiring all polling places and vote centers to offer the option until 8 p.m. on election day.

But with change comes the potential for hiccups.

You better believe it. For the past few decades, voting in California has been one gigantic hiccup.

If you think that we got this was through some pristine voting process, you are delusional. As I implied here, California’s Organized Left has built the electorate it wants, with massive voter fraud as complement.  But I wonder about something.

I wonder if California can be flipped.

What has me thinking about this is CA AB5. Enacted by the Democrat Super-majority in the California Assembly and signed by Democrat Governor Gavin Newsom – who has also allotted $20 million to enforce it — it has nearly every self-employed Californian wondering when their next dollar is coming from.

Remember: CA’s Political Left wants only three kinds of people in the state: the rich, the dirt poor, and the illegal. AB5 is just another winnowing tool in a long line of them.

So, all the actors, film crews, artists, musicians, hairdressers, costume designers, set designers, and whatnot who have been contracting out their talent for decades have seen  all their livelihoods nearly obliterated by AB5 — the handiwork of politicians put into office by many to most of them.

I’d sure love to see President Trump address how California’s Political Left has betrays them – preferably doing it while holding court the Rose Bowl. Yes, I want to see a Trump rally in Southern California.

Anyway, the California Primary is about to drop off and we will see which one of the Democrats will likely face the president.

I hope it’s Biden because … who doesn’t?

Juliette Akinyi Ochieng has been blogging since 2003 as baldilocks. Her older blog is here.  She published her first novel, Tale of the Tigers: Love is Not a Game in 2012.

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Here, then, I have today set before you life and prosperity, death and doom… I call heaven and earth today to witness against you: I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. Choose life, then, that you and your descendants may live,

Deuteronomy 30:15,19

Yesterday the President put out his long awaited peace plan for the middle east.

You might expect me to comment on the details but said details are actually not important because if you are looking at this as a peace plan you are completely wrong.

This is not a peace plan, it’s an ultimatum.

The president is smart enough and worldly enough to understand that any deal with the Palestinians that does’t explicitly give them to right to continue to kill Jews until not one is left alive and the state of Israel is gone is a tough sell at best and a non-starter. Mostly because the leadership knows that agreeing to any such deal, particularly one that involves cracking down on terrorism is likely going to cost them their lives. Then again as Don Surber points out the equation is slightly different than it was a few days ago:

Killing ( Soleimani) jeopardized Iran’s terrorism program which he headed. Today, President Trump followed through with a Middle East proposal that creates a Palestinian state, opens Temple Mount to all three Abrahamic religions, and invests $50 billion to create a million jobs for Palestinians

It’s true that if they grabbed the Trump plan and gave up their vendetta the Palestinians would actually grow in wealth, power and influence to the point where they might actually be able to rival Israel economically and perhaps even militarily in a few generations,

If you were dealing with a western culture this would be a no-brainer but this is a face culture. To publicly concede the permanent existence of Israel is a humiliation beyond them. Much easier & safer to grift off the UN, Iran and anyone else’s aid and live without fear of assassination.

But that’s the other half of the coin.

If Potus can nail Iran’s #1 terror coordinator you had better believe that Israel can nail Hamas’ boss men if they wish so that suggests that they might be able to protect a Palestinian leader who comes to the table, furthermore if they turn to terror as a response you don’t know if Trump might decide that like the late Iranian General they are expendable.

Trump is a deal maker, if this deal is turned down then it’s likely that Trump will not only cut the Palestinians off without a cent but might tell Israel that as far as he is concerned they are welcome to take the gloves off both with Palestinian leadership and their people.

What happens if Israel decides they’ve had enough of this and simply annexes any remaining west bank territory that they won in the 1967 war that they need, fence it off and leave the Palestinians to govern the rest of the land without them.

After all what is anyone going to do? The State is Israel is now self sufficient in terms of water and energy. They are a nuclear power and no state not in the business of suicide is going to risk a war of destruction against them. As for the UN what are they going to do other than make noise, after all they can’t be more anti-Israel than they already are.

And that’s only part of it, what happens if an energy exporting US decides to put pressure on other states to cut aid to the Palestinian state? What happens if the gulf states afraid of Iran are told that any help from the US means cutting these folks loose and Iran isn’t doing all that well these days to begin with.

All of this is feasible thanks to a United States that is energy independent, economically resurgent and rearmed beyond the ability of their enemies to challenge them.

This is the actual question that the Palestinian leadership faces: What do you fear more?

Of course without Trump there is no choice necessary. I suspect they will stall and wait to see if the propaganda they are seeing on CNN about Trump’s imminent defeat is real, but if (OK when) the President is re-elected the stark choice will be before them again. I also suspect that the longer they wait, the more likely that both Trump’s and Israel’s price will go up. There are big rewards with going with Trump and survive, but if they go against him they are basically a local street gang with little to no clout beyond their neighborhood and without that foreign capital and Israel willing to provide what they do their clout within the territories vanishes.

The Donald has set before them the choice of life and death of the Palestinian People. I suspect A Palestinian nation unshackled to war and graft will grow and prosper beyond their wildest dreams to the point where Palestinians in Israel & elsewhere will rush to be part of the growth and prosperity it will generate. That is the choice of life.

Alas I doubt they will make that choice. This plan goes nowhere but it would be nice if I was wrong.


Closing thought: Ironically the peace deal is also the best shot for the radicals to manage to conquer Israel eventually. Take the deal, let the Palestinians grow rich and powerful and Israel grow complacent for four or five generations and then strike Pearl Harbor style when it’s not expected. The problem with that plan is once the population is rich, prosperous and happy they just might decide it’s not worth losing what they have to satisfy a few radicals dreams of genocide.

Yesterday I went to the wake for Mike Romano the Butcher that I wrote about here.

Mike ran the last butcher shop in Fitchburg, he wasn’t a big pol, a famous celeb or anything else but even with an empty church across the street the parking was impossible, the lines were impossible and from end of the line to the recieving line was over an hour.

Just because a man cuts meat for a living doesn’t mean he didn’t make a difference.


Speaking of making a difference we are now hearing all kinds of “Should the Patriots have traded Brady” talk now that the 49ers are going to the Superbowl to face Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs.

This is how spoiled people Brady has made people. You have a guy who made it to the superbowl in consecutive years and was one defensive stop by his team from winning two rather than one and people are assuming it would have automatically have happened if someone else was at the helm. To those folks I ask this: How many times has Aaron Rogers gone to the Superbowl? Drew Brees, Peyton Manning, Ben Roethlisberger? The lot of them combined have neither played in as many Superbowls as Brady nor won as many yet are all clearly HOF QB’s.

That’s how hard it is to get to the Superbowl so if you thing that you could just plug in anyone and win ask Andy Reid and Pat Mahomes if they are happy they didn’t have to go through Brady to get to where they are today.


Curt Schilling missed the HOF again this time getting 70% of the vote 5% shy finishing third behind Larry Walker and Jeter who both made it in.

Sports writers are notoriously liberal and they will never forgive Curt Schilling for being an unabashed conservative, particularly in an age of Trump. Next year will be the real test with the weakest HOF lineup in a long time. I have a feeling given the choice between voting in Clemens and Bonds (who finished 4th and 5th & both deserve elevation) or Schilling, the sportswriters will either forgive the steroids users rather than give Schilling the nod, particularly if (ok when) Trump wins re-election.


You’ll not I didn’t write or tweet word on the impeachment trial. Since the ending is a foregone conclusion and the only question is if we will hear from Joe Biden’s son or not I don’t see how it’s worth my time or yours.


Finally Yesterday the President during his speech at Davos noted a long list of doomsday predictions that failed to come true over the last fifty years and also talked about the success of America and his optimism and put it all in perspective:

“This is not a time for pessimism, this is a time for optimism,” Trump said as Thunberg watched from the audience. “We must reject the perennial prophets of doom and their predictions of the apocalypse. They are the heirs of yesterday’s foolish fortune tellers.”

Greta of course game another speech of doom

“Our house is still on fire.” “Your inaction is fueling the flames by the hour.”

Outside the conference center, five helicopters circled like petroleum-hungry vultures.

She chided the jewelry-rattling audience. “You say children shouldn’t worry. You say, ‘Just leave this to us. We will fix this, we promise we won’t let you down.’ ” She paused. “And then, nothing. Silence. Or something worse than silence. Empty words and promises, which give the impression that sufficient action is being taken.”

“Let’s be clear,” Thunberg said. “We don’t need a ‘low-carbon economy.’ We don’t need to ‘lower emissions.’ Our emissions have to stop. And, until we have the technologies that at scale can put our emissions to minus, then we must forget about net zero. We need real zero.”

. I suspect she will still be given plenty of lip service and those trying to retard US energy production will continue to help finance her but in the end people follow leaders, particularly optimistic ones with a record of success so it’s not going to be a surprise on whose message is going to win.